Is there a Philosophy of Technics? On science, technics, utopy and dystopia

Abstract

Humans need to create their own environment to survive and to live a fulfilling existence. In this task technique first and technology hand in hand with science later, have allowed him to put nature at their service, in a career of progress that promises utopia. However, nothing in the human realm is so simple or so linear, and the same technology that has allowed undeniable achievements also carries its costs and losses, and can pose a threat. Environmental problems and the possibility of transforming our own nature into another (as proposed by transhumanist narratives) are two obvious examples. There is therefore an urgent need for a philosophy of technology, as a critically reflective movement capable of posing radical questions and making holistic considerations. In the world we live it is necessary therefore to combine the reasonable specialization of scientists with their incompetence to set ultimate goals to their own activity. The consequences of scientific developments are too important to be in the hands of a new «enlightened despotism», because they affect the entire society. It is also essential to re-propose a truly human notion of the common good, in the face of the powerful reductionist tendency that confuses it with the mere well-being available through economic progress. Finally, it is convenient to bring to light some true losses induced by an omnipresent technology, which could be described in general terms as the eclipse of the real by the virtual, and the correlated growing inability for the «self-absorption» (ensimismamiento) of persons completely turned to the immediacy and exteriority of technological connectivity.